MacMillan's Reading Books eBook

All this Charlie knew full well; but he had a pair
of excellent pistols, and a dauntless heart.
He stopped at Mumps’s Hall, notwithstanding the
evil character of the place. His horse was accommodated
where it might have the necessary rest and feed of
corn; and the landlady used all the influence in her
power to induce him to stop all night. The landlord
was from home, she said, and it was ill passing the
Waste, as twilight must needs descend on him before
he gained the Scottish side, which was reckoned the
safest. But fighting Charlie, though he suffered
himself to be detained later than was prudent, did
not account Mumps’s Hall a safe place to quarter
in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore,
from Meg’s good fare and kind words, and mounted
his nag, having first examined his pistols, and tried
by the ramrod whether the charge remained in them.

He proceeded a mile or two, at a round trot, when,
as the Waste stretched black before him, apprehensions
began to awaken in his mind, partly arising out of
Meg’s unusual kindness, which he could not help
thinking had rather a suspicious appearance. He
therefore resolved to reload his pistols, lest the
powder had become damp; but what was his surprise,
when he drew the charge, to find neither powder nor
ball, while each barrel had been carefully filled
with tow, up to the space which the loading
had occupied! and, the priming of the weapons being
left untouched, nothing but actually drawing and examining
the charge could have discovered the inefficiency
of his arms till the fatal minute arrived when their
services were required. Charlie reloaded his pistols
with care and accuracy, having now no doubt that he
was to be waylaid and assaulted. He was not far
engaged in the Waste, which was then, and is now,
traversed only by such routes as are described in the
text, when two or three fellows, disguised and variously
armed, started from a moss-hag, while, by a glance
behind him (for, marching, as the Spaniard says, with
his beard on his shoulder, he reconnoitred in every
direction), Charlie instantly saw retreat was impossible,
as other two stout men appeared behind him at some
distance. The Borderer lost not a moment in taking
his resolution, and boldly trotted against his enemies
in front, who called loudly on him to stand and deliver.
Charlie spurred on, and presented his pistol.
“A fig for your pistol!” said the foremost
robber, whom Charlie to his dying day protested he
believed to have been the landlord of Mumps’s
Hall—­“A fig for your pistol!
I care not a curse for it.”—­“Ay,
lad,” said the deep voice of Fighting Charlie,
“but the tow’s out now”.
He had no occasion to utter another word; the rogues,
surprised at finding a man of redoubted courage well
armed, instead of being defenceless, took to the moss
in every direction, and he passed on his way without
further molestation.